Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The main purpose of the study was to examine whether emotion impairs associative memory for previously seen items in older adults, as previously observed in younger adults. METHOD: Thirty-two younger adults and 32 older adults participated. The experiment consisted of 2 parts. In Part 1, participants learned picture-object associations for negative and neutral pictures. In Part 2, they learned picture-location associations for negative and neutral pictures; half of these pictures were seen in Part 1 whereas the other half were new. The dependent measure was how many locations of negative versus neutral items in the new versus old categories participants remembered in Part 2. RESULTS: Both groups had more difficulty learning the locations of old negative pictures than of new negative pictures. However, this pattern was not observed for neutral items. DISCUSSION: Despite the fact that older adults showed overall decline in associative memory, the impairing effect of emotion on updating associative memory was similar between younger and older adults.